Issue(s): Doctor Strange #29
Cover Date: Jun 78
Title: "He who stalks!"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Tom Sutton - Penciler
Ernie Chan - Inker

Review/plot:
Nighthawk shows up to request the help of Dr. Strange.

There's been a mysterious death at one of Kyle Richmond's labs, and after the recent Defenders events, Kyle is suspicious. Dr. Strange agrees to investigate, leaving Clea behind.

Clea is not happy about this. She's supposed to be Strange's disciple, but he always leaves her behind. This isn't just a throwaway scene, either. Stern is examining the way Clea has been treated in this book and will continue to develop her character logically.

There's a cute scene where Strange transforms his costume into civilian gear, and winds up conjuring clothes that remind people of Dracula.

After a long period of mystic adventures, Strange is forgetting what it's like to be human, which is a nice touch.

The scientist's death turns out to be the work of the Death-Stalker (who as we've seen in Daredevil has a penchant for killing the scientists that are helping him). He's been intimidating Richmond's scientists into building a high tech weapon. Dr. Strange proves himself to be truly terrifying against a Daredevil-level villain, even one with some level of mystic powers.

The weapon is destroyed and Death-Stalker is seemingly killed, although he will re-surface in Daredevil soon.

Readers write in about this issue to complain that it would have been a better fit for an issue of the Defenders, but ignoring Nighthawk and the fact that Death-Stalker is a Daredevil villain, this issue has the flavor of the old Ditko issues, where Dr. Strange is called upon to investigate some sort of mystical mystery. I liked it.

There's also a cameo by the Avengers that warms my shared-universe loving heart.

God bless Roger Stern!

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: A footnote on the opening page indicates this takes place after Defenders #58-60 (and of course Dr. Strange #23-28). As to the "recent" references (see below), i think it's pretty clear that Pym and Strange have been playing phone tag for a while, plus they've both been busy, so it's taken time for them to compare notes and therefore they're talking about older events. Also, considering the compressed timeframe, it is possible that events that were published last year really are only a few weeks in the past in Marvel time.

References:

• Wong doesn't want to interrupt Stephen and Clea's alone time since they are recovering from the events of Defenders #58-60 and Dr. Strange #24-28.
  
• The call is from Yellowjacket and Iron Man. They want to know if Dr. Strange is missing his Black Knight statue, since they were attacked by such a statue "recently". Now "recently" is vague enough, but the Black Knight statue attacked in Avengers #157, published over a year ago.
  
• Strange also says that he's been trying to reach Pym "for the past week", because he's "recently" (again) learned about a menace called Thanos. The Beast grabs the phone to tell Strange that Thanos has been taken care of as of Marvel Two-In-One annual #2. Dr. Strange heard that Thanos was a threat from the In-Betweener last issue, but Strange says "the In-Betweener was more in error than I thought."
  
• Death-Stalker was last seen in Daredevil #152.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Roger Stern was my favourite writer of comics, hands down

I like that even in the MU, where Dracula does exist, the play was still revived in the late 70's.